AND THE EUROPEAN QUESTION. To be treated A ROLE FOR THE FOUR POWERS It would be a mistake to think that the tumultuous events going on in Germany are only a matter for the Germans themselves. There is an international framework at hand, which hallows for self-determination, and it ought to be invoked. Some background may be in order. The re-unification of Germany has been a declared aim of the three Western powers-The United states, Britain and France, -since the end of the Second World war. It has also sometimes been an aim of the other principal victor; the Soviet Union. All four countries continue to have some responsibility for Berlin and Germany as a whole. In the early post-war years there was conference after conference to discuss the question. The disagreements then were not so much on the principle of re-unification, but rather on how it should come about and what form a re-united Germany should take; demilitarised, neutral or whatever. Very broadly speaking, the western insistence was on free elections for all Germans, the soviets were more interested in demilitarisation. Until the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, such conferences were a major part of East-West diplomacy. The Wall cut all that off, at least for a while, because it seemed that off, at least for a while, because it seemed that Soviet policy, implicity accepted by the west, was that East-Germany should be established as an independent state, althrough one heavily supervised by the Soviet Union. Gradually, this policy began to work. There was a modus vivendi between the Western powers and Moscow, and between the two Germanys. In the late 1960s West germany embarked on its Ost-politik, a policy described by Mr. Willy Brandt at that time as one of reducing the barriers by small-steps and of accepting the existence of one German nation within two states. There was progress both on the intra-German and the international level. It became possible for both Germanys to have embassies in the same third country and both took their sats at the United Nations. On the Four power side, the quadripartite agreement on berlin in 1971 was an outstanding example of international diplomacy. Berlin ceased to be a significant source of friction. At the same time, the agreement was in keeping with the general climate of East-West detente. Since then, the process of detente has had its ups and downs. It was down for most of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, and only climbed up again when Mr. Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in the Soviet union and the West recognised that there was somebody in Moscow with whom it could negotiate. Even when detente was out of fashion, however, some progress was made. The Helsinki Final Act of 1974, signed by all Eurpean countries except Albania, plus the United States and Canada, established a basis for continuing talks on the future of Europe. What has become known as the Helsinki process remains very much in being. Yet the event that did not take place was the parallel development of the two German states. The federal republic continued to expand economically, while East Germany tended to stagnate. Moreover, successive East German governments have shown that they cannot take their people with them. There is thus a fundamental imbalance between the germanys: one attracts people, the other drives them away or, until recently, sought to keep them in with the wall. After last month’s events, it is hard to think that anything in the middle of europe can be the same again. but it would be equally mistaken to believe that a new system can be put together by the Federal Republic and what is left of the East german state alone. Historically there are the four power responsibilities which are intended to tie Germany into the international community. None of these need to be carried out over the heads of the German people; the West Germans were intimately involved in the wider framework of the Helsinki Final act. The institutions needed to deal with the new situation exist; it is imperative that they should be used. That means some urgent East-West talking- along with the Germans. now that the Berlin Wall is down. By Nasiru Iddrisu |